Memoirs of the City of London and Its Celebrities (Volume 1)

Memoirs of the City of London and Its Celebrities (Volume 1) By John Heneage Jesse CHAPTER I TOWER HILL, ALLHALLOWS BARKING, CRUTCHED FRIARS, EAST SMITHFIELD, WAPPING. Illustrious Personages Executed on Tower Hill Melancholy Death of Otway Anecdote of Rochester Peter the Great Church of Allhallows Barking Seething Lane The Minories Miserable Death of Lord Cobham Goodman's Fields Theatre St. Katherine's Church Ratcliffe Highway Murders of the Marrs and Williamsons Execution Dock Judge Jeffreys Stepney. WHO is there whose heart is so dead to every generous impulse as to have stood without feelings of deep emotion upon that famous hill, where so many of the gallant and the powerful have perished by a bloody and untimely death ? Here fell the wise and witty Sir Thomas More ; the great Protector Duke of Somerset ; and the young and accomplished Earl of Surrey ! Here died the lofty Strafford and the venerable Laud ; the unbending patriot, Algernon Sidney, and the gay and graceful Duke of Monmouth ! Who is there who has not sought to fix in his mind's eye the identical spot where they fell, the exact site of the fatal stage and of its terrible paraphernalia ? Who is there who has not endeavoured to identify the old edifice ' from which the gallant Derwent water and the virtuous Kenmure were led through avenues (j.soldief$' fo-.ihfe.folock ? or who has not sought .forthe. -bouse '{adjeining the scaffold " where the gferitle 'Kilmameck'* breathed his last sigh, and where the intrepid Balmerino grasped affectionately, and for the last time, the hand of the friend who had so often dashed with him through the ranks of the foe on the field of battle? Among a host of scarcely less illustrious personages who perished by the hand of the executioner on Tower Hill, may be mentioned Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, son of the false and perjured Clarence ; the handsome and accomplished adventurer, Perkin Warbeck ; the gallant Sir William Stanley, who placed the crown on the head of Henry the Seventh on the field of Bosworth ; the powerful Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham ; Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the successor of Wolsey in the favour of Henry the Eighth ; George, Lord Rochford, brother of Anne Boleyn ; Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, mother of Cardinal Pole ; the ambitious Lord Seymour of Sudeley, uncle to Edward the Sixth, and brother to the Protector Somerset ; the turbulent John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland ; Sir Thomas Wyatt ; Lord Guildford Dudley, the husband of Lady Jane Grey ; her father, I-tenry Grey, Duke of Suffolk ; Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the ambitious lover of Mary, Queen of Scots ; the crafty visionary, Sir Henry Vane; William Howard, Earl of Stafford, condemned on the false evidence of Titus Gates ; Sir John Fenwick ; the gallant Charles Radcliffe, brother, of the Earl of Derwentwater ; and lastly, the infamous Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat. But it is not entirely from the illustrious blood with which it has been drenched that Tower Hill derives its interest. Here, at a cutler's stall, the assassin Felton purchased the knife which cut short the life of the mighty Buckingham ; and here, at the sign of " the Bull," died, in extreme poverty, the unfortunate dramatic poet, Thomas Otway ! Dennis tells us that his death took place at an " alehouse ; " but, according to Oldys, in his MS. notes to Langbaine, it was in a sponginghouse. " He died," says Doctor Johnson, " in a manner which I am unwilling to mention. Having been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is supposed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a public-house on Tower Hill, where he is said to have died of want ; or, as it is related by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of hunger, and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-house, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; and Otway, going away, bought a roll, and was choked with the first mouthful." Such, at the age of thirty-three, is said to have been the fate of "poor Tom Otway," to whose imaginative genius we owe " The Orphan " and " Venice Preserved." Tower Hill is associated with a name scarcely less celebrated than that of Otway, that of a man of widely different character and fortunes. We allude to William Penn, the founder and legislator of Pennsylvania, who was born here on the I4th of October, 1644. During a part of the time her husband was a prisoner in the Tower, we find Lady Raleigh fixing her residence on Tower Hill. To the northwest of Tower Hill is Great Tower Street, where the witty and profligate Earl of Rochester practised on a raised stage his memorable pranks as an Italian physician and fortuneteller. His lodgings were at a goldsmith's, next door to the " Black Swan ; " and here he was to be seen and consulted between the hours of three o'clock in the afternoon and eight at night. Burnet informs us that his disguise was admirable, and that he practised physic "not without success," for some weeks. His fame, which at first was merely local, at last reached the ears of the court. Rochester was of course equally well acquainted with the scandal of the day as with the persons and characters of those who figured in it ; and accordingly, having recognised the female attendants of some of the ladies of the court, he sent them back to Whitehall sufficiently amazed at his supernatural powers to excite the curiosity of their mistresses. In a masquerading, and still more in a superstitious age, it was not unnatural that many a fair lady, under the convenient guise of the then fashionable mask, should have sought to dive into futurity by means of the Italian fortune-teller, or that she should have been startled by the disagreeable truths which he communicated to her. 1 On the south side of Great Tower Street may be seen the Czar's Head public-house, so named from a tavern which was the frequent resort of Peter the Great ; who, after his favourite boating expeditions on the river, used to pass his evenings here, imbibing almost incredible draughts of brandy and beer. 2 His prowess in drinking appears to have been a matter of astonishment to all who approached him ; indeed, we are assured that at their social meetings the usual drink of the Czar and of his cicerone, the Marquis of Carmarthen, was "hot pepper and brandy." On one particular day he is said to have drunk no less than a pint of brandy, a bottle of sherry, and eight bottles of sack, and yet he was able to attend the theatre in the evening. In Little Tower Street, Thomson was residing in 1726; and here he composed his "Summer," published in 1728. West of Tower Hill is the ancient and interesting church of Allhallows Barking. Hither were conveyed the headless remains of more than one illustrious person after their decapitation on the neighbouring hill. Here rested the body of the Earl of Surrey till its removal, in 1614, to Framlingham, in Suffolk ; and here also rested the remains of the pious and ill-fated John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, till they were transferred to the Tower Chapel, to mingle with the dust of his illustrious friend, Sir Thomas More. In the chancel was interred Archbishop Laud, who was beheaded in 1645, arj d whose remains continued here till the month of July, 1663, when they were removed to St. John's College, Oxford, of which society he had been president. In the same grave which had been tenanted by Laud, was afterward buried the learned and pious Dr. John Kettlewell, who, as his monument at the east end of the church informs us, " Animam Deo reddidit ; Ap. 12, 1695. ALtat. 42. The church of Allhallows Barking derives its name from "all Hallows," or all Saints, and from the manor of Barking, in Essex, the vicarage having originally belonged to the abbess and convent of that place. The date of its foundation is not known. We learn, however, from Stow, that a chapel was originally founded on the spot by Richard Cceur de Lion ; and it has been said that the heart of that chivalrous monarch was long preserved within its walls, though, according to other accounts, he himself bequeathed his heart to the citizens of Rouen, in gratitude for their loyalty and attachment. But, whatever may have been the motive, there can be no doubt that our early sovereigns took an especial interest in the prosperity of this religious foundation, and that it was munificently endowed by successive princes. At this spot the warlike Edward the First frequently came to offer up his devotions. When he was Prince of Wales, it is said that he had been assured by a vision that he should be victorious over all nations, and more especially over Scotland and Wales, on condition that he should erect an image to the Holy Virgin, in King Richard's Chapel, and should pay his adorations to her there five times in each year. Edward religiously followed the injunctions of the vision, and when, subsequently, one military success followed another, " our Lady of Barking " grew into such repute, that pilgrims flowed to her shrine with rich presents from all parts of England. King Edward the Fourth subsequently endowed the chapel with a brotherhood, consisting of a master and brethren, under the name of the King's Chapel, or Capella Beatce Maria de Barking ; and lastly, King Richard the Third rebuilt the chapel and founded there a college, consisting of a dean and six canons.

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